In her lecture, Dall will talk about PRAXES Center for Contemporary Art – a new independent not-for-profit venue for international contemporary art and research in Berlin. Situated in a two floor 200 m2 community building of the renovated, brutalist church St. Agnes in Kreuzberg, Berlin, PRAXES presents half year Cycles of consecutive exhibition modules and live activities revolving around two distinct artistic practices. PRAXES invites audiences to collectively and critically explore the range and diversity of artistic practice today by gradually – over the half year Cycle – presenting artworks, production processes as well as related material in cumulative exhibition moduels, text, and event formats. This autumn PRAXES has been focusing on Gerard Byrne (IR) and Jutta Koether (DE).

Rhea Dall is a Berlin-based curator and scholar, who – together with Kristine Siegel – recently founded the new not-for-profit venue for contemporary art and research: PRAXES Center for Contemporary Art in Berlin (www.praxes.de). In addition, Dall is currently working on her doctorate in the arts at Copenhagen University on the subject of “experimental art institutions” – an engagement that follows her recent position as curator at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, before which she worked for the Berlin Biennale (2008/10) and coordinated The Danish & Nordic Pavilions in Venice 2009.

The programme is supported by Higher Education Development Fund (FRVŠ).

*The Curator Takes Over Consultation

There is a conventional question regularly raised at art schools: what was the role and meaning of art in the past and what it is in the present. Lofty answers do not last very long; this is because art always changes regardless never-ending attempts at a permanent definition.

In the connection with the development of discourse about art and its evaluation; it is evident that a successful art school graduate is able, alongside a successful engagement with subject matter, form and technique to present his/her work and lead a confident dialogue. This particular style of a communication can be stereotypically underestimated and sometimes linked to students who allegedly by a confident expression conceal an absence of a ‘real’ content and intellectual ability.

The Curator Takes Over Consultation is designed a series of lectures and consultations with curators for students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. The lecture is open to public and each of the each curator will introduce her/his own strategies at the beginning. The second part of the lecture will address contemporary issues that are particular to a curator’s local art scene, which may be a lack of critical discourse, biased outlook or following of one’s own interests.

The objective of two days of consultations (it is necessary to register immediately after the lecture) is to encourage students of AVU to present their art practice to representatives of a curatorial and exhibition system. Consultations will aim to facilitate an open dialogue between students and curators where a shared objective is to discuss points of intersection of their interest.